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All posts for the month July, 2013
the Dreamer series?
or your other favorite site. Tell your friends and family about the series, share it on your Facebook pages and twitter. Buy Allie’s book on release day so that her ranking will climb to best seller status. Suggest the books in your next book club meeting. Go to your local library and bookstore, and if they don’t carry Allie’s books, request that they be ordered. TELL THE WORLD!!! That’s all!
The Guardians
Book 2 in the MORE Trilogy, by T.M. Franklin
The Guardians doesn’t come out until November, but today we get a sneak peek from the sequel to MORE…and it looks like Ava’s still running into quite a bit of trouble!
It’s not every day a girl discovers she’s not entirely human and unlocks hidden powers strong enough to make even the First Race take notice. Then again, Ava Michaels is no ordinary girl.
Now, the Race’s Ruling Council wants her under their control, and that’s just the beginning of her problems. Her boyfriend, Caleb Foster, has disappeared—accused of betraying the Race—and Ava herself is implicated in a crime she didn’t commit.
Clearing their names will mean uncovering a web of deceit and intrigue with Ava woven right in the center. To unravel the strands, she joins forces with some unlikely allies; a Protector who once haunted her nightmares, a young girl with secrets as unexpected as Ava’s, and a group of rebel Guardians who have their own fight against the Council.
Together they stand in a battle to find the truth, bring Caleb home, and secure Ava’s freedom—not to mention save her life.
~Excerpt From The Guardians~
“How far?” he asked. “Do we have time to get out?”
Ava reached out with her gift, a sinking feeling settling in her stomach. “No. They’re too close. Probably already at the cave entrance.”
Tiernan’s jaw flexed as he looked around the cavern, trying to come up with a plan of action. He signaled for them to follow him as he crossed the room, taking up a spot against the wall next to the opening leading to the tunnel going outside. He flexed his fingers around the gun, and said in a low voice, “You’ll have to create a distraction again. With any luck, we can get them headed down that other tunnel before they realize we’re here. Maybe with so many Race imprints, it will be hard for them to pinpoint our exact location.”
“You think that will really work?” Ava asked.
“Probably not.” He shrugged. “So you might have to reenact that trick with the door—maybe with that crate over there.” He gestured with the gun across the room, looking at her sideways. “Do you think you can do that?”
Ava knew what he was asking. Could she hurt someone? Could she possibly kill someone? She’d done it before, with Arthur, but that was spur-of-the-moment, unplanned—a them-or-us situation where she didn’t have time to think about it beforehand. This was different. She looked at Emma, clutching her hand, innocent and scared, and thought of Caleb.
Caleb.
Somewhere out there. And once the Council learned Caleb was still on the run, they’d most likely take matters into their own hands. In other words, hunt Caleb down. She couldn’t let that happen. They had to find him first.
With grim determination, she nodded sharply. “I can do it.”
They waited in silence, and Ava could feel each step as the group got closer. She could tell when Tiernan felt them as well. He squared his shoulders, clenched his fists, and braced his feet in a wide stance, preparing for a fight. She turned to the tunnel across the room and readied her own weapons, calling on her gift as the first footsteps echoed through the cavern. She reached out for the metal door she’d knocked down, picking it up and letting it clatter against the stone floor. The sound amplified in the tunnel, and it wasn’t long before their pursuers ran into the cavern. They huddled in the shadows as the four Rogues scanned the room, but to Ava’s surprise, they didn’t even seem to notice them.
Then she realized it wasn’t only her own gift she was feeling. Where she held Emma’s hand, she felt the tingle of unfamiliar power running along her skin. She gaped at the girl, whose eyes were closed and brow creased in concentration, and watched as the Rogues took off down the far tunnel.
Tiernan tugged on Ava’s sleeve, and she stumbled after him.
The three of them ran down the tunnel in the opposite direction, and Ava felt a rush of hope as the light of the entrance finally showed ahead.
They raced out into the sunshine, and Ava stopped and turned around.
“What are you doing?” Tiernan snapped, tucking his gun back into his pants. “Let’s go.”
“Just buying us some time,” Ava said, calling on her gift again.
With a low rumble, the front of the cave shuddered and collapsed in on itself, kicking up a cloud of dust. When it finally cleared, a pile of dirt and rocks lay where the entrance had been.
“Nice,” Tiernan said with an appreciative grin. “Remind me never to tick you off.”
The Guardians Releases November 7, 2013
Add The Guardians to Your Goodreads Shelf
About MORE
Ava Michaels used to think she was special. As a child, she fantasized about having magical powers . . . making things happen. But Ava grew up and eventually accepted the fact that her childish dreams were just that, and maybe a normal life wasn’t so bad after all.
Now a young college student, Ava meets Caleb Foster, a brilliant and mysterious man who’s supposed to help her pass Physics, but in reality has another mission in mind. What he shows Ava challenges her view of the world, shaking it to its very core. Because Caleb isn’t quite what he seems. In fact, he’s not entirely human, and he’s not the only one.
Together, the duo faces a threat from an ancient race bound to protect humans, but only after protecting their own secrets—secrets they fear Ava may expose. Fighting to survive, Ava soon learns she’s not actually normal . . . she’s not even just special.
She’s a little bit more.
NOW available at a LOWER price!
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About T.M. Franklin
T.M. Franklin started out her career writing non-fiction in a television newsroom. Graduating with a B.A. in Communications specializing in broadcast journalism and production, she worked for nine years as a major market television news producer, and garnered two regional Emmy Awards, before she resigned to be a full-time mom and part-time freelance writer. After writing and unsuccessfully querying a novel that she now admits, “is not that great,” she decided to follow the advice of one of the agents who turned her down—write some more and get better at it. Her first published novel, MORE, was born during National Novel Writing month, a challenge to write a novel in thirty days.
She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, Mike, is mom to two boys, Justin and Ryan, and has an enormous black dog named Rocky who’s always lying nearby while she’s writing. Whether he’s soothed by the clicking of the computer keys or just waiting for someone to rub his belly is up for debate.
In addition to MORE, Franklin penned the Amazon best-selling short story, Window, as well as another short story, A Piece of Cake, which appears in the Romantic Interludes anthology. The sequel to MORE, The Guardians, will be released in the fall of 2013.
Connect with T.M. Franklin
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We have a winner!!!
As Adeline and Cole’s worlds collide, the line between illusion and reality is blurred. According to a tribal legend, Adeline and Cole are no longer two friends, but two pieces in a complicated mystery.
Suddenly, Adeline finds herself in a world she never knew existed. Along side Cole, she attempts to unravel the mysteries of the small Chippewa tribe in order to not only find out who Cole Dyami truly is, but who she is as well.
As Cole and Adeline begin to uncover the secrets behind the legends of the Chippewa tribe, illusion slowly unravels into reality and friendship gradually melts into a mutual need of survival.
krazy15k!!!
First I would like to thank Allie for hosting me today as part of the Blogger Book Fair.
I’m what I like to think of as an omnivorous writer. That is, I enjoy writing in all sorts of genres. In fact, this time last year during July, my sister, Sophie Duncan, and I were running a month long promotion through our company website (Wittegen Press) where we released a free short story every day and covered lots of genres.
Each story was available for one day only and then later in the year we gathered them all up, re-edited them and published them in a series of anthologies. It was a very interesting writing exercise and our readers seemed to like it. The anthologies are available at The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games Anthologies if you would like to see what we came up with. I won’t say too much, because Sophie is publicising the anthologies during the BBF and I don’t want to step on her toes.
All genres have aspects that make them absolutely brilliant to explore and other parts that are the difficult bit about writing for them. What I wanted to do today is give you an insight on why I love different genres and what makes them a right pain in the proverbial for me on occasion as well.
Genre | Fun Parts | Difficulties |
High Fantasy | It’s a totally invented world so there is much fun to be had from simply making things up. Unless the civilisation is being based off a real one, there is no detailed research to do. | There needs to be a lot of planning and recording involved because everything is new. Places, magical restrictions, animals, races – it all has to be created and maintained. |
Contemporary Fantasy/ Paranormal | Magical additions to the real world mean anything is possible. Any situation can be created and controlled. | It’s set in the real world so the magical aspects have to be blended in carefully. This can be a fine balance. |
Sci-Fi | Alien worlds make for countless possibilites and what isn’t cool about a space ship? | There has to be a believable scientific element to the setup. This requires research and/or a great deal of consideration. |
Horror | Monsters, demons, ghosts, insane killers; it can be so much fun to play with darkness and the fear it inspires. | In my opinion, horror should shock and scare, but not completely repel. I have read horror novels I have put down with a grimace and never picked up ever again because they were too horrible. |
Crime | My favourite crime story is a good murder mystery. When writing one it is great to set up the suspects one by one, giving them motives and plot background. | It’s a fine balancing act to lay the pointers to the murderer so that the reader does not feel betrayed when the reveal happens (I hate it when the murderer comes out of nowhere) and not being too obvious. |
Romance | I am a romantic at heart so I really enjoy the romance genre. For me I adore the exploration of love and togetherness, as well as the sexier more explicit side of the market. | Romance can become very sappy very fast unless there is a good plot holding it together. Getting it right is an art. |
So there you have it: why I love genre and want to throw things at it at the same time :). I have seen many people look down on genre fiction, but I think it is one of the most creative realms anyone can ever dip their toe into. I’m also very much for mixing of the genres, because, when done well, that can only make things more fun.
I have a Young/New Adult contemporary fantasy series in the BBF called The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman in which I do a lot of genre exploration. The first book, Cat’s Call, is contemporary fantasy through and through; it’s about a young man from the UK who ends up hips deep in magic. However, I wrote it so there is a connecting theme of contemporary fantasy, but parts of the books take place on other worlds which can be anywhere, any time and with any rules. Hence I can play with genre. The second book, Cat’s Creation, has elements of paranormal and mafia style crime in there as well, where as the third book, Cat’s Confidence (out soon) has two thirds of the book set on a world which is high fantasy with dragons.
Genre fiction is wonderful, I don’t know why you’d want to read anything else ;). Thank you very much for reading.
Do you have a favourite genre? Do you like mixing genres, either reading or writing?
The Chronicles of Charlie Waterman by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Cat’s Call 99c/87p |
Cat’s Creation $2.99/£1.89 |
Cat’s Confidence
coming soon |
When Charlie has the powers of the Cat Spirit forced upon him, he gains the ability to change shape into a cat and travel between worlds, but he has no idea how it all works. Unless he wants to be stuck with a tail his only choice is to go to the magical dimension of Between to meet and train with the six chosen of the other great spirits, all but one of whom are just teenagers like him.
With the help of Akari, his mentor; the Seer, a girl who is actually older than Charlie can fathom and, as the name suggests, has visions; and his new comrades, he has to learn to control himself, take on a quest to stop an evil warlord from gaining some very power magical artefacts, and figure out who is attacking Between. If he fails existence might just fail with him.
Natasha Duncan-Drake
Blog | Twitter | Tumblr | Livejournal | G+ | Wittegen Press Author Page
About the Author: Tasha started writing as a pre-teen and has never stopped. She used to be a software engineer and database designer before she decided to follow her dream to be a writer full time. With her twin sister she created Wittegen Press, a small e-Book press for publishing genre fiction. Her books include novels in the contemporary fantasy, crime and horror genres as well as many short stories and novelettes in every genre from sci-fi to romance. When she’s not writing she’s usually reading, watching vampire movies, baking or polishing her Photoshop skills.
Quinn Sinclair lives an ordinary life with her less-than-loving mother in Conifer, Colorado, clueless of her true nature. On the night of her birthday, a staggering betrayal sends her life spinning out-of-control. As she struggles to pick up the pieces, a vision of a man with haunting tourmaline-blue eyes begs her for help, and she is transported into a Magykal battle—forever changing her life.
Arik Morgaine—Demigod bad boy and outcast of the Magykal Realm—tried to avoid contact with Princess Quinn for eighteen years, not wanting to make good on an old threat. But the fates have other plans.
Arik can no longer deny his growing desire for Quinn, or the need to protect her from those wanting to control her burgeoning powers.
Can the two of them come together and save the Magykal Realm from being destroyed by the Darkest of Magyks?
Colour Wielders is on sale for $.99!
Dawna Raver is an author of paranormal romance and urban fantasy. Colour Wielders, book one of the Heirs of the Magykal Realm series, is her debut novel. When she’s not spending time in her fantasy world, Dawna loves football, reading, and pretending she’s a top chef in the kitchen. Oh, and fawning over her dogs and husband, sometimes in that order.
Contact Dawna at:
Purchase Links:
Colour Wielders Excerpt, Chapter One
Colour Wielders
“Good.” Thaene nuzzled her neck. “I want you to show me your Magyk.”
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Forget Me Not by Allison Blanchard
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“What can I do to make you believe you’re not dreaming?”
Dreaming? Right. I thought I was dreaming. The dull ache threatened to return. The pieces of my heart began to fall apart. Cole leaned in, tilting his head. Raindrops landed on my eyelids as his lips gently met mine.
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02
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Ghostwriter by Lissa Bryan
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She kissed him with sweet hunger. He felt her tongue brush the seam of his lips, and he was lost. He kissed her like he’d wanted to for weeks, and oh God, it was every bit as good as he thought it would be.
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03
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Making the First Move by Reese Ryan
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I can barely breathe. His kiss is greedy, intense. It sends a chill down my spine yet sets every nerve in my body ablaze with a consuming fire. I’m overwhelmed by the sensation of heat, the increased sensitivity of my skin and the pulsing ache between my thighs.
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04
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Finding Esta by Shah Wharton
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He sliced the razor across his tongue, gasped until his lips found mine, and
luscious blood flooded my mouth. He delivered my first kiss and I sucked, licked, and drank him in. No pain or visions interrupted the sensation of his unadulterated passion, which rode into me on each cell. |
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05
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The End of All Things by Lissa Bryan
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Seth stopped her words with his lips. Warm and soft, and so sweetly
gentle as they moved over hers. Sara twined her arms around his neck and
arched closer. Her heart was beating so fast she was afraid it might explode
from the exertion and joy singing through her veins.
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06
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Midnight Caller by NJ Cole
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Bringing my lips to hers, I pressed softly. Instantly, she reacted by pressing back. That may have been acceptable when a woman kissed a man, but it was not acceptable in my playroom. When I kissed her, I was in control. I decided how and when we kissed.
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07
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My first kiss was with Ramesses II after I took an unplanned trip back in time. I didn’t kiss him; he kissed me after sneaking up on me. He didn’t take his time or was gentle about it at all. It made my head spin after he was through!
BUY NOW!
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08
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Disciples, Part III by L. Blankenship
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No smile in his eyes as he leaned just a little, only a gentle, lulling focus. A brief
touch, lips to lips. I knew that look; I’d seen it in Kiefan’s eyes — Fear jabbed me, and I flinched. Looked away. |
There is also Stephan. The man who saved her from the daily torture she had to endure at the hands of Ian and his friends. The same man who makes her heart race with just the thought of him. Life is good.
Outside forces are determined to conspire against them, however. When Brianna’s father shows up on her doorstep, it sends her world spiraling out of control. He brings with him new information about how Brianna ended up in Ian’s clutches, but will it make a difference? Will Stephan be able to find a way to make Ian pay for all he made Brianna suffer?
As Brianna and Stephan try to find out the truth, their relationship is tested. She is forced to face her past head on and deal with the ugly reality of what happened to her. Will Stephan’s love be enough to see her through her newest challenge, or will the fragile trust they’ve built come crumbling down around them as the truth makes itself known.
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Chantal Breelan has suffered from horrific nightmares for most of her life, believing something is wrong with her to have such visions of destruction. But when creatures of terror came crawling out of the shadows to hunt her down shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she discovered the truth. Her dreams became reality, throwing her headfirst into a battle wrought by cursed monsters, where death and torture lie at every turn.
Mathias is a descendant of a Fallen Angel and a powerful Warrior. He vows his life in service to pay recompense for the sins of their fathers by guarding Chantal from within the shadows. Long has he fought, shedding sweat and blood, hoping that his struggles wouldn’t be in vain. With Chantal’s life in danger, he’s been forced to reveal himself, yet she has managed to surprise him with her fierce tenacity and strength. In his sacrifice, he finds redemption and life’s ultimate reward—a love to surpass all time.
Now Chantal has picked up the reins of her birthright and stands by her Warrior kin, by Mathias. She’s on a mission to rescue others like herself. Yet, in this challenge, a battle of wits is exposed. New players are discovered, throwing strategies into question. When the truth comes to light, can Chantal hold her band of brothers together, or will they crumble under the weight of betrayal?